How do the lottery scratch games you love to play end up at your favorite retail location? Good question! It can take months for a scratch game to come to life.
A lot of research goes into determining which tickets could be at your store. We work with St. Cloud State University to find out who plays the lottery and what they play. We look at historical data to determine which games have been most successful. We survey both lottery players and non-players to find out what tickets they would buy when faced with limited dollars and lots of choices. Our team takes all that research and works with our scratch product manager, the vendors that print lottery tickets, our in-house graphic designers and our advertising agency to generate game ideas.
Lottery players enjoy a wide variety of games, including easy-to-play $1 games, crossword and bingo, $20 games with big top prizes and games that are loaded with tons of smaller prizes. The idea behind Cash Blowout came from one of our sales reps and our scratch product manager. With the help of our scratch ticket vendor, it hit stores in the fall of 2015 with $3 million in $50 and $100 prizes. It was a huge success and led to more games loaded with smaller top prizes like Full of $500 with millions of dollars in $500 prizes.
We love to celebrate all things Minnesota, especially Minnesota winters and the hearty Minnesotans who love them. The Bold North ticket was designed by one of our in-house graphic artists. The ticket design incorporated colors of the northern lights in Minnesota. We added a 2nd Chance and threw in Minnesota resort vacations including the chance to go dog-sledding.
Lottery proceeds help restore, enhance, and protect the environment of the state that we all love. In 2019, we launched Lucky Lakes Crossword, also a ticket designed by one of our artists. The theme of this ticket came from a lottery brainstorming session. Lucky Lakes Crossword was part of the Go Green 2nd Chance with the top prize of a Ford Fusion Hybrid vehicle. The ticket was designed as a collage using different textures of paper and wood to connect with the environmental theme.
Lottery staff and our vendors all work together to develop great games that appeal to all of our lottery players. Which is your favorite?